Natural Gas Could Be Bigger Than the Internet, Welch Says

Too much regulation is standing in the way of the key to America's energy future and in turn its economic growth, former General Electric Chairman Jack Welch said on CNBC.

Removing barriers to developing natural gas is every bit as important as resolving the "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax increases that looms ahead, the head of the Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University said in a "Squawk Box" interview.

"We have a chance in this country to make this the American century," Welch said. "This gas thing is huge. The gas that we have found is in the first inning — it's like the Internet in 1990. This is the first inning of the great American century."

States such as Pennsylvania and West Virginia at the forefront of natural gas exploration because of their low regulatory burdens, while New York lags, he added.

"The regulatory wall is a huge deal. It's equal in my opinion to what happens in the marketplace as the fiscal cliff," Welch said. "The regulatory wall is obviously right in front of you."

The rate ticked up to 7.9 percent in October even though the economy added 171,000 new jobs, according to the last Labor Department report Friday, which Welch said shows how fickle the data points are.